Havana Storm (Dirk Pitt 23)

67

Crouched behind a pallet of explosives on the barge, Pitt watched Ramsey’s launch sail away as his mind returned to his daughter. The discovery that Díaz was aboard the Sea Raker changed everything. It gave him hope that Summer might be aboard, but it also changed his strategy. He’d planned to sneak aboard and somehow disable the mining equipment. But if Summer was aboard, he would have to find her first.

With Ramsey’s help, he’d made it this far. Covered by a tarp, he’d hid on the floor of the launch as Ramsey visited the Sea Raker. While the Canadian met with Díaz, the launch’s pilot idled the boat off the mining ship’s side and let it drift astern. When a few nosy ship hands at the rail grew bored and wandered off, the pilot eased alongside the barge and signaled Pitt. With a quick leap, he boarded unseen.

He crossed the barge, moving quickly from crate to crate. A heavy white powder littered the deck, which he knew was the ANFO from some spilled bags. The barge was only half full of crated explosives, indicating a large portion had already been deployed on one of the thermal vents. The delivery means was in service a few yards ahead of the barge: a steel-grated platform suspended by a thick drop cable. Pitt watched as several crewmen loaded a long, coiled tube onto the platform and lowered it over the side.

He made his way to the rear of the barge and climbed aboard the Sea Raker when he spotted no one about. The ship was otherwise alive with activity. He could only assume the crew was preparing to blow the thermal vent. An uneasy feeling began to creep over him.

He might be too late to prevent it.

He shook his doubts aside, knowing his top priority was to find Summer.

He crept forward, holding to the shadows, but progressed only a short distance when a work crew came up behind him, lugging a replacement cutter head for the auxiliary mining machine. One man tripped under the burden, twisting his ankle and dropping his end of the weight. A supervisor, straining under the load on the opposite side, noticed Pitt standing nearby.

“You, over there. Come give us a hand.”

Pitt was trapped. If he assisted the men, the bright deck lights would reveal he wasn’t part of the crew. If he ignored the supervisor, he would create an undue suspicion.

Spotting a door to a nearby prefabricated structure, he took a chance. Shrugging at the supervisor, he motioned toward the door, stepped over, and turned the handle. His luck held and the door opened. He ducked inside as the supervisor shouted a curse in his direction.

Pitt had expected to walk into an equipment locker but found himself at the back of the mining control room. Multiple video images illuminated the big screen while chatter from computer station operators rattled off the steel walls. Pitt eased into a dark corner when he saw Díaz directing the operation from his armchair down front.

Several ROVs flitted about the sea bottom, displaying the massive cache of ANFO explosives piled into the slit trench. One ROV turned upward, its camera capturing the arrival of the bulk cutter as it dropped to the seabed and vanished in a cloud of sediment.

The current blew the water clear as the ROV moved in for a closer view. When it turned to capture the side of the cutter, Pitt nearly choked. Clasped by the cutter’s manipulator and held to its side like a bread basket was the NUMA submersible Starfish.

Yet it wasn’t the appearance of the Starfish that startled Pitt. What took his breath away was the sight of his daughter, sitting alone and helpless in the pilot’s seat of the stricken submersible.

68

Ninety minutes.

That was the remaining life of the Starfish’s battery reserves. Once the power failed and the carbon dioxide scrubbers ceased, Summer would die a slow death from asphyxiation. Unless hypothermia from the cold struck first.

When Díaz and his men forced her into the submersible and lowered it over the side, she knew he didn’t intend for her to surface again. She immediately activated the life-support systems, while shutting off all nonessential power drains. She was thankful her father had powered down everything when they were brought aboard the Sea Raker, leaving her some remaining battery charge.

Once on the seafloor, she realized ninety minutes was a false hope. As the bulk cutter’s treads began turning and the big machine lurched forward, she saw the massive pit filled with explosives. Her death would come soon—and violently.

The cutter trudged to the edge of the trench and stopped. Its manipulator arm rotated outward, swinging the Starfish from its side. An operator on the surface released the manipulator’s grip and the submersible dropped into the trench, landing upright on a carpet of explosives.

A pair of ROVs captured the scene, their lights blinding Summer as they buzzed about the submersible. They gradually pulled away, hovering over the bulk cutter as it crawled into the darkness.

Summer peered out the viewport until the ROVs faded to a small speck of light. Then she went to work.

She had one last gambit: the fact she could still make the submersible buoyant. The ROV may have destroyed the sub’s external thrusters on their first encounter, but it hadn’t hampered the Starfish’s ability to surface.

Summer powered the ballast tank pumps and initiated a purge to empty the flooded tanks. She waited for a reaction, but nothing happened. There was normally a hissing of compressed air, followed by a gurgle of expelled water, but now there was only silence. She checked the power and circuit breakers and tried a second time.

Again nothing. Then she checked the compressed air cylinder that supported the ballast tank. The gauge read zero. The Sea Raker’s crew had emptied the cylinder to prevent such an attempt.

Glancing out the viewport at the bed of explosives, she tried not to panic. She took a deep breath—and thought of one more option. The Starfish was fitted with twin lead weights that could be jettisoned for lift in an emergency. Her father had released one set of weights when they tried to escape the bulk cutter, but another still remained.

She climbed behind the seat, where under a floor panel she found a secondary release. Grabbing the handle, she twisted it to the drop position.

Nothing happened.

The Sea Raker’s crew had done their handiwork there, too, securing the weight so it couldn’t be released. Díaz had made sure her last voyage was a one-way trip.